196 
WEED-COVERED ARCH. 
headed adder, angrily making his way from the 
invader of his solitude. 
Wilde pursuing my researches, I suddenly came 
upon a stone arch of uneven granite, rude, natural, 
and Cyclopean, overgrown with weeds, mottled with 
lichens, and half-concealed by a rank undergrowth, 
yet a veritable arch of rugged stone. It suggested 
the idea of those rough-hewn stones of Stonehenge, 
and the primseval altars, built by white-robed, 
bearded Druids, on plains and in sacred groves full 
of mistletoe-covered oaks, for pui^oses of mystic 
and most probably unholy worship. Under this 
rude arch I crept with a childish kind of pleasure, 
although to have gone round it would have been 
far easier. .The strong lines of a spider’s web of 
unusual size, with a fat, bloated occupant in the 
centre, opposed my progress, but only for a 
moment ; Arachne’s web was rent, and the “ long- 
Jegged spinner ” placed in durance vile. When at 
• length fatigued with my exertions, I was reposing 
on a log near the shore, I observed not very far off 
a something in the drift, which, on examination, 
